One in five complete building permits in Toronto are not being processed within provincial deadlines, a new staff report says.

And critics are blaming a high number of unfilled jobs in the city’s building department.

At the end of June, the department had 38 vacancies — a number that represents 9 per cent of a full complement of 431, the report says.

Some 20 per cent of complete building permit applications take longer to process than deadlines set out in provincial regulations — which say permits for single-family homes should be turned around within 10 business days.

Between 2008 and 2012, it took an average of 29 days to issue permits for residential additions and alterations. Since that figure includes both complete and incomplete applications, the response time is considered acceptable, the report says.

But some councillors on the planning and growth management committee disagree.

“It’s completely unacceptable that we have people experiencing delays in their projects,” said Councillor John Filion, a committee member who represents a development-heavy ward.

Fellow committee member Adam Vaughan said the situation hurts citizens doing renovations more than large developers, who have staff to keep on top of applications.

“We have terrible customer service,” said Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina). “People are paying fees for the service. What they’re not getting is the service. We have to staff up.”

Filion (Ward 23, Willowdale) said he’s mystified why hiring hasn’t happened, because building permit fees — more than $50 million a year — cover staff costs.

“They should charge whatever fees you need to pay the staff,” he said. “The public and builders do not complain about the fees, they complain about the delays.”

In fact, fee revenue has been so lucrative that the city had built up a reserve of almost $21 million at the end of 2012.

“It’s the sort of thing that makes people crazy and question how well the city is being run,” Filion said.

The report cited a spike in retirements, but Filion said such departures are predictable.

“Retirements usually don’t come as a surprise. Every department needs to have a plan to fill vacancies, however they occur, so that the job gets done.”

The building department isn’t the only one short of staff. Vacancies are considered to be too high in such key areas as urban planning, public health and information technology.

City-wide, there were 2,542 vacant positions as of June 30, for a vacancy rate of 4.9 per cent. Three per cent is considered normal.

The building department says it added five staffers as of July 1 to review building plans, and believes it only needs another five plan reviewers to handle the workload.

The chair of the budget committee, Councillor Frank Di Giorgio, said staff have been dealing with a huge volume of work due to the recent building boom. The current staffing might be high enough if volume fell, he suggested.

“If you go through the process of hiring additional people, and then activity dies down as we expect it will, then you’re overstaffed and you’ve got a problem,” Di Giorgio said.

“Notwithstanding that some people feel the pressure right now, the number (of staff) they have may be the right number in the overall scheme of things, that’s what I’m thinking.

“It has to be looked at, no question, but it has to be looked at in a very pragmatic way. The same applies to all departments, to be brutally honest.”

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